


Light Me Up

by Trogdor19



Series: Navy!Logan [1]
Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Family Feels, Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, Long-Distance Relationship, Love, Military, Navy Logan, Navy!Logan, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:15:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22465510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trogdor19/pseuds/Trogdor19
Summary: Logan’s about to leave on his 2nd deployment. Veronica blows up to get people to finally understand why she didn’t become a lawyer.Then, when Logan gets a new job offer, they have a decision to make that helps Veronica finally understand his career choices and to become an active part of his Navy family.Post-movie fic
Relationships: Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars
Series: Navy!Logan [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1642582
Comments: 143
Kudos: 187





	1. Pre-Deployment Dinner

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: This takes place in a different AU than my fic Christmas in Paris, because apparently I like making up different military besties for Logan, and also bc I think if Serena from this fic had existed in the Christmas in Paris universe, they wouldn’t have had as hard of a time getting engaged.
> 
> For timeline reference, this is Logan’s second deployment since he and Veronica got back together, so he’s still a pilot, and this is between the movie and S4. All military details are wrong and I take full responsibility for their wrongness.
> 
> This fic will have 5 chapters!

“The best part about it is that you can start it with a screwdriver, so you never lose your keys.” Veronica grinned and swiped the garlic bread from her dad’s side of the table. “Though it is mildly humiliating when you have to shake the whole car to get it to start. Something about a short in the wires, maybe?”

“I thought the best part was you didn’t notice when people door dinged you at the grocery store, because the dents were camouflaged by the rust spots.” Logan’s voice was low and dry.

“Mmm, no, the _best_ part is the two hundred smackaroos I save every month on the payment that can go to my student loans. And the look on your face when I park that rust bucket next to your beemer.” She winked at her boyfriend. “You can’t buy that kind of satisfaction.”

“You know what you can buy, though?” Her dad broke in. “Peace of mind from being about to start your car when you need to run from a dangerous criminal on short notice.”

She shrugged and stole a strawberry off Logan’s plate. “Peace of mind is overrated. I’m a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of girl. More fun that way.”

“You know what would be even more fun? Being able to cover your car payment with half an hour’s worth of billable time.”

Veronica’s back stiffened. “Dad...”

He got up and grabbed the shaker of garlic from the kitchen, bringing it back to the table. “You’ve got that whole law degree just gathering dust and it’s basically a license to print money.”

“I use my degree! Passed the California bar exam and everything, in case you don’t remember the month we never speak of, when I drank so much coffee the whole block smelled like Folgers.”

“You get paid by the document from Legal Zoom.” Her dad’s graying eyebrows descended. “I hardly think checking three-page wills for retirees from Iowa is flexing your legal muscles.”

She stabbed at her spaghetti with more force than strictly necessary, then manufactured a bright smile, tilting her head toward Logan. “Happy pre-deployment dinner, sweetie. Having fun? Maybe we should migrate topics to the weather. I hear the winds are good for sailing hundreds of miles away from here, which probably sounds a lot better than it did an hour ago.”

“Mmm, we prefer to run our ships on dead dinosaurs and diesel fumes these days. Waiting for the wind is for playboys and trophy wives.” His voice stayed light.

“Well, I’m glad one of us is fine with how this is going.” Since when did Logan hold his temper better than she did? But the strain in the lines around his eyes had her flaming up all over again and she couldn’t help but add, “So did Dad call ahead and tell you guilt trips were on the menu?”

Keith put down his fork. “It’s not a guilt trip, honey. I just wish your life could be a little easier, that’s all. You’re too smart for Neptune, always have been. And I worry about you, driving that car you insisted on buying. At least the LeBaron was reliable.”

“She can drive my car while I’m gone,” Logan broke in. “It’s not good for it to sit for so many months, anyway.”

“That old thing? Pshaw.” Veronica waved her fork. “Shows every dent.”

Logan wasn’t eating anymore, either. “It’s only fair, considering I’m the reason you lost the job they offered you in New York.”

“They have law firms in California, too,” Keith said under his breath, and Logan flinched.

Veronica tossed down her fork with a clatter. “You know what? I think I’m ready to head home.”

“Honey…” Keith sighed. “I’m sorry. Your old dad worries, that’s all. Finish your dinner.”

Logan touched her leg under the table, his soft brown eyes begging her not to make waves on his account, and that only made her feel worse for letting this go on as long as she had.

“I’m not mad at you,” she told her father. “But we let too much stuff go, you and me, because we don’t want to fight, and I’ve had enough. No more lawyer digs, no more little comments. You’re too smart not to realize how personally Logan takes it, and after he _saved your life_ , for god’s sake. If I hadn’t come back here, he wouldn’t have been on our street that night and you’d be dead. You think we’d all be better off then, huh?”

“Veronica, it’s fine, really,” Logan interrupted. “Honestly, you’re lucky to have a parent that worries about you, and…”

“No.” She pushed her plate away and slapped both hands flat on the table. “I’ve said this in a hundred different ways but I want you both to listen for _once_. I’m not some dumb, infatuated girl who followed a boy home without thinking of the consequences. I’m a woman who made this choice with her eyes wide open, for so, so many reasons I don’t know if either of you could ever understand. But at least know this.”

She paused to make sure they were paying attention, because this was the last time she was going to say it.

“Logan or no Logan, I was never going to stay a lawyer. I would have washed out in a few years anyway because I was living someone else’s life that I wanted to like, but didn’t. In New York, I didn’t have the kind of friends who would take a bullet for you. I had the kind of friends who would send a shocked text message if they heard you got shot, and then would show up with flowers on their lunch break, maybe the second day you were in the hospital. I had lunch break flower friends. Same thing with the job.”

She took her napkin out of her lap, balling it up and tossing it on the table. 

“And you know what? I wasn’t just a good lawyer. I was a _great_ lawyer.”

Next to her, Logan shifted in his seat, staring down at his unfinished spaghetti and her dad’s commemorative World Series placemats.

“I could go over reams of contracts that would put anyone else to sleep, digging up every little twist of language that would take away the rights of one person and give them to another. When the other interns were fading after a twelve-hour shift, I was going strong after sixteen. I didn’t need to go home, didn’t need to have a life. And courtroom skills?” She snorted. “Forget about it. I could construct a compelling narrative, knew how to read a room, play to my audience. When it came time for the jury selection unit, my professor let me _teach_ it. My whole life, I’ve heard people say that they love what they do because it’s what they’re good at, and I don’t know if they’re wrong or if I am, but that wasn’t how it worked for me. You know why I don’t ever talk about my time in law school?”

Logan looked up at that, the tension in his tall frame showing how intently he was listening for the answer to that.

“Because I never miss it.” She shrugged. “I was a fucking great lawyer, and the second I stopped practicing law, I forgot I’d ever started. One time, I had to set a reminder in my phone to break up with my boyfriend out there, because I kept forgetting I had one. That was how I was with my whole life in New York City. In those years, if I didn’t remind myself, I’d forget I was even alive.”

“I get it, honey,” her dad murmured. “You weren’t happy.”

“It wasn’t that, though, Dad. I wasn’t _un_ happy either. I wasn’t anything. I did everything I was supposed to because I never wanted anything enough to be tempted to do otherwise. I ate my vegetables because food stopped tasting like anything. I didn’t skip class because I had nowhere I cared to be. The first time I felt _anything_ again was when I saw Logan’s name come up on my phone screen.”

She turned to her boyfriend, fighting back her guilt at how pale he’d gone. This wasn’t how she wanted to spend his first night before he deployed for months, but this confrontation was long overdue. Ever since she came back to Neptune, it had been little digs and passive aggressive comments and disappointed glances from her dad, then guilty ones from Logan every time he saw her worrying over bills.

“I never told you this, but when you called, I was in the waiting room for a job interview. The most sought-after firm, the one everyone in my graduating class was drooling over. I’d been working every hour of every day for almost a decade toward exactly that, and I was sitting there, the only woman who made it into the waiting room, feeling nothing. Eating my damned vegetables, being a good little girl.” She reached for Logan’s hand, holding his eyes as she said it. “And when I saw your picture on my phone, I _wanted_ something again.”

He swallowed, the emotion in his eyes something she wished she could bottle and keep forever in her chest. Except his guilt was still there, as strong as the awe.

She turned to her father. “I didn’t come back just for Logan. I came back because when I started to work his case, I _cared_ who had done it. I wanted to know who had killed Carrie, _needed_ to understand how the pieces fit together. The stakes were higher because it was Logan, yeah, but even just the case itself sparked something in me. I needed to chase that spark bad enough to get arrested for it. Whereas in New York, I wouldn’t so much as cross the street outside a crosswalk, because there was nothing out there worth crossing a line for.”

Her dad’s eyes were big and sad, but he was listening. She wouldn’t let either of them look away, not for this.

“Seeing you again, and Mac and Wallace…” She fumbled for words, unable to explain the inexorable grip tugging inside her chest even at the thought. She glanced to Logan again, her anchor. “At the reunion, I hated that you all got in a fight over me and that stupid video. But even so, it hit me so hard that here, even after all this time, I had people who would _fight_ for me…” Her voice cracked, went breathy as tears jumped to her eyes and she let go of him to gesture helplessly, not sure how to articulate everything she meant.

“No lunch break flowers kind of friends.” Logan nodded. “Before I joined the Navy, Dick was the only friend I had in my whole life who would have actually been scared if I got shot. I get it, Veronica.”

“For nine years, I lived another life,” she told her dad. “And nobody gave two fucks about me, which I can’t even blame them for because I wasn’t _me_. I left that behind in Neptune. It was like all those years, I was a string of Christmas lights that somebody was using to tie back the curtains. I was practical, I did my job holding back those curtains, but when I stepped back into my life here, it felt like somebody finally plugged me in. As soon as I lit up, I remembered what I was really made for. And it wasn’t to tie back the fucking curtains.”

Goosebumps rippled across her skin, the hairs at the nape of her neck standing on end with the intensity of what she was feeling, remembering it all.

“At first, I was scared of that feeling of purpose, of wanting anything that much. I almost destroyed all three of us, back when I still had passion. Because I couldn’t leave the cases alone, couldn’t stop fighting with Logan or stop loving him, couldn’t let go of my own vengeance. When I felt that first delicious flare of passion again, I worried I was like Mom. That it was an addiction that felt too good, that it would ruin me. I didn’t even know what part to be the most afraid of. My love for Logan, or being a detective, or my friends and family here. Because I wouldn’t just take a bullet for those things, I would _fire_ a bullet. I know myself well enough to be afraid of the havoc I can wreak when I truly care about things.”

Logan wasn’t breathing, in his seat next to her, and still she couldn’t stop talking. She’d always been afraid to try to explain all this to him, but it was the _truth_.

“I kept changing my ticket a day later, then two. I couldn’t bring myself to leave, but I was afraid to stay. And then…” She caught her breath, her hands starting to shake. “One minute you were standing in the kitchen with me, Dad, and the next you were bleeding in the street. That night after everything in the hospital, I woke up and Logan was gone. For a second, just for an instant, I thought I was back in my New York life where nothing mattered and nothing hurt and nothing had gone wrong. Where I didn’t want anything enough to step a toe out of line. I came out of that bed so fast it might as well have been on fire.”

She curled her hands in her lap, nails digging into her own palms because she wanted to reach for both her men and even now, she was afraid of how irrevocable the pull was between them and her. She could feel the force of it vibrating in her and she was too smart not to be scared.

“I pray,” she said hoarsely. “Every single day I pray that living like this, _caring_ like this? Won’t lead me to destroy all of us all over again. Because I don’t want to live any other way. I won’t live any other life than mine. It was safer, but it wasn’t _worth_ it.”

The kitchen was dead silent, and no one was arguing with her anymore.

Veronica swallowed. She’d wanted them to understand, really understand, why she’d made the choice she had. All the things she’d never told anyone, about all the ways she’d failed, and how it led her to finally come to understand herself. And that she’d never had a choice about who she was.

“I’m not a lawyer, Dad.” Every word fell like a gavel. “No amount of law degrees and perfect GPAs and power suits have ever changed that. Every time you make me feel like a failure for becoming an investigator like you, you’re insulting both of us. But Dad? _We’re not failures_.” She reached across the table to grab both of her dad’s hands. “We’re broke, yeah, but when, in Neptune, has money ever made anyone a better person? We solve our cases, faster and more compassionately than anyone else could. People need us, Dad, just as much as they need lawyers. More, maybe, because the people who need us most can actually afford us. And that’s worth driving a rust bucket car for. At least to me.”

His eyes were watering as hard as hers now. “Okay. Okay, honey. I understand. And I _am_ proud of you. I’m sorry I ever made you feel that I wasn’t.”

She caught Logan clearing his throat a little shakily, trying to hide the sound of it, and she let go of her dad’s hands and tossed off an offhand smile, more than ready to be done talking about her feelings.

“Yeah, well, it isn’t going off for a six month deployment, risking my own ass to keep the Netflix-binging citizens of America safe, but I do what I can. Now can we please get back to celebrating Logan’s last night? And also the brownies I baked? There will be plenty of time for our family drama and bickering when he’s off playing hero and being a badass.”

She patted Logan’s thigh and dug into her spaghetti.


	2. Beach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Hunter Hayes isn’t always my thing, but his song “Wanted” has such good lyrics for this chapter. And kinda for Logan and Veronica in general, the way I like to write them.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruyaKdPfTN4

The leather of the car seat chilled her legs as she waited for Logan to join her, and Veronica fumbled her spare keys out of her purse and started the BMW so she could hit her seat heater. After they polished off the brownies, her dad had given her a long hug, then asked Logan to stay back for a private word. Which wasn’t concerning at all.

Her boyfriend opened the driver’s side and slung his long legs in under the steering wheel.

“What did he say?” Veronica eyed Logan’s expression with more than a little wariness. “Do I need to crack some heads? Swap his salt for his sugar? Drop a trout in his heater vent?”

The hint of a smirk lifted his face. “My hero. I’d take you on deployment to protect me, but it would hardly be entertaining if the bad guys all ran away before I got a decent fight out of them.”

“That’s the motto. Veronica Mars: ruiner of all fun, protector of all Logans, and spoiler of all fights since 1987.”

Logan started the car and air from the heater vents tickled her hair against her cheeks.

“He apologized. Said he wanted you home more than anything, but couldn’t shake the guilt that you were meant for so much more than Neptune. Didn’t want you to compromise for his sake.” Logan threw her a glance. “I told him I understood the feeling. That I didn’t know how the fuck to live with it most days.”

“And then he reminded you that it was cute you were worried, but if you thought his headstrong daughter took any advice but her own on how to live her life, you were deluding yourself.”

Logan chuckled as he angled his head to check the side mirrors. “In different words, but pretty much.”

She patted his hand. “He’s a smart man, that Keith Mars. I’d listen to him if I were you.”

“Mmhmm.” He made a noncommittal noise and she forced her eyes away from the clock on the dash so she couldn’t calculate the hours until he’d be so, so much further away than arm’s length. “Hey, you mind if we make a little stop on the way home?”

“Sure,” she agreed immediately. It was stupid. Not like morning would come any slower no matter what time they got home. But it wasn’t their official last night together until they got into bed, and as much as she wanted to be in that bed, she didn’t want to start the countdown, either.

He took a right, heading closer to the coast. Not the beach by their house but a more out of the way one. More likely to be deserted this time of night. Veronica rested her hand on the warmth of his thigh, feeling the muscles flex with his small movements as he drove. He looked pensive, and she wasn’t so sure she wanted to know what her big speech had him thinking about. Especially before they were about to be separated for six months. She really didn’t want to fight.

“Sorry for starting a whole thing on your last night.” She gave his thigh a tiny squeeze. “I just…lost my temper a little bit. He’s been going nuts with the lawyer digs at the office lately, you don’t even know. And the tighter the bills get…” She shrugged. “Just makes it worse.”

The muscle in Logan’s temple flexed, tiny creases of strain appearing at the edges of his eyes. “And you won’t let me help, because the point is that this is the life you want and the one you chose. Not a sacrifice you made for me, that I need to make up for.”

Her eyebrows went up. “I hope Jane gave you a gold star on your last communication exam. Because damn, flyboy. You really were listening when I was ranting.”

“I always listen. I just don’t always like what you’re saying.” He threw her a look. “Counterpoint: You could take the money not because I feel guilty, but rather because it would make all of us less stressed. You know I don’t give a fuck about it, and I give oh so many fucks about you being happy, and not fighting with your dad, and not forced to take cases that piss you off just to keep the lights on.” He flicked on the turn signal and glided smoothly into the lot for the beach.

God, how could the man even make _driving_ sexy? Especially when he was saying such infuriating things about money.

“Careful, Lieutenant, or I’m going to downgrade your gold star for active listening to a silver. I came back here because I wanted to feel like the real Veronica again. And Real Veronica has never taken your money. I let you pay half the rent, even though you’re not even here all year long, and I consider that quite the magnanimous concession.”

“Most of my money is just sitting in the stock market, supercharging a bunch of hedge funds that make rich men richer. You hate that, so why shouldn’t it go to a more worthy cause? You know I’m happier when I’m mostly living on my Navy salary anyway.” He shut off the car and scanned the empty parking lot for threats. Which Veronica thought was cute, since she’d checked out the security of the whole space before they’d even gotten all the way past the driveway.

“Except for indulging your expensive taste in cars, surf trips, and unspeakably gorgeous sweaters, that is.” She patted his thigh and got out, slinging her messenger bag over her shoulder. “Leave it, Echolls. You ain’t gonna win this one, and I promise I’ll dig up enough clients to keep the wolves from the door by the time you get back, so you don’t have to worry your pretty little head about it.” She winked. “I’m the brains in this relationship, right? You’re the brawn.”

“Funny.” He tossed his keys, caught them, and locked the car with a blink of headlights. “Thought you were the brawn and I was the brains.” He caught her around the waist and dipped her, kissing her so breathless she didn’t even have a chance to protest his antics. “I was the one smart enough to use my murder rap to lure you back to town, after all.”

“Veronica Mars catnip,” she murmured into his smile. “Very clever.” She patted his butt. “Okay, you can be the brains. But then you have to stay behind me so I can protect you. The beach is dangerous at night.”

He dropped back to walk a step behind. “Mmm, a ferocious blonde to fight my battles and the view is so good back here. It’s looking like a win/win from my perspective.”

She smiled, her boots sinking into the sand as she led him further onto the beach. She wasn’t sure if he wanted more time with her or a little more time with the beaches he knew before he ventured into the unpredictable miles of open ocean, but anything Logan wanted tonight, Logan got. She’d been known to spoil him a little before he was about to go out of town.

Except she noticed that as they got closer to the waves, his face didn’t relax. If anything, it darkened and became more pensive, and her instincts trilled a warning.

“I saw it, too, you know,” he said as they found a place to sit on the sand that was relatively trash-and-seaweed free. “When you walked off that plane you were…beautiful.” He caught his breath, pausing for a long second. “But then when you had your old jacket back on, your messenger bag slung over your shoulder and you strode out of your dad’s house… You said it exactly right, before. It was like someone finally plugged you in and you were lit up so bright I could barely look at you straight on. But I couldn’t look away.”

She smiled back at him, her fingers toying with a broken shell, then dropping it back to the sand. It felt like just a minute ago that they’d reunited, but it had been almost two years, and he was about to leave her all over again.

Last night.

Last.

Last.

Last.

The word kept repeating in her head, reminding her of waiting in her dad’s hospital room for him to wake up, of how many things she swore she’d never leave unsaid again. But then as soon as Dad got better, she was doing it again. Taking the easy way out, making the joke. Making love to Logan until both of them were panting too hard to talk, instead of trying to explain to him in words all the things she felt that made her need to touch him so urgently. They both worked dangerous jobs. How many more chances were they going to get?

Veronica scooted a little sideways, so she could look at him. Before he went away, she wanted him to understand this, but she hadn’t wanted to say this part in front of her father.

She touched his arm, her fingertips just brushing the crisp cotton of his shirt. He always ironed too much, when he was about to see her dad.

“Logan, I didn’t come back just for you, but you should know I would have. Even if there was no job that lit me up, no family and friends, no messed up town that felt like my own, I would have moved for you.” She hesitated. “You know, there’s this saying…”

He blanched. “You don’t have to do the voice.”

But she had already dropped her voice into the halting Alabama drawl. “ ‘I’m not a smart man, but I know what love is.’”

Logan shuddered. “I appreciate the sentiment, but you still do the worst Forrest Gump impression on earth.”

She grinned, happy to have yanked his chain once again, but the smile softened at the edges as she pressed forward again, not wanting to let either of them joke their way out of her getting to the point she’d set out to make. “But that’s the thing. I don’t think I did know what love was. When I was in New York, everyone said I love you all the time. It’s just part of the whole thing, like how you have sex after a certain number of dates, and say I love you after a certain number more. I dated a lot when I was in New York, and—”

“You did?” He frowned. “You’ve never mentioned…anyone. I mean, I know about Piz, but only because I saw you with him at the reunion, honestly.”

“They were nothing. Another thing I tried because I was supposed to.” She made a dismissive gesture. “It’s like, most of the time, you date for a while, decide if you like each other. With you, there was no deciding.” She watched him intently, trying to memorize every plane of his lean, expressive face. “It felt like every goddamn cliché in the book. Seeing you takes the breath out of my lungs, makes my heart pound out of my chest, can’t live without you near—all of it.” She made a self-deprecating sound, glanced away.

“And you hate being a cliché.”

“Kinda.”

Not when it let her feel the way he made her feel. She didn’t mind being a cliché then, she just minded anyone _knowing_ she was a cliché.

“But that’s also my point. Loving you wasn’t a _choice_. You versus those guys I needed a phone reminder to break up with…It’s the difference between a kitchen faucet and a tsunami. I would have moved anywhere to be with you again, once I remembered what ‘I love you’ was really supposed to feel like. Even Beverly Hills.”

He dodged a sideways glance at her, his eyes betraying his almost shy pleasure. “You know how I know it’s the real thing, with me and you? Because I still like you even when you do that terrible Forrest Gump voice.”

She grinned. “Whatever, you love it. I do great impressions. You should hear my Ira Glass.”

“Uh-huh, I bet.”

When he didn’t tease her further, Veronica tried not to let her stomach drop. There was no reason for this foreboding feeling. It was just because they were happy, and that always made her feel like someone was probably about to try and kill them.

God, it had been good having him home. When he came back last time, over a year until the next deployment had seemed like an abundance of time, but it had zipped by in a storm of kisses and cases and fervent sex. Now it seemed like their new, adult relationship had only spanned three or four minutes total before it was time for him to go again.

“It’s not that long,” he whispered, like he could read her thoughts in the shifting of the cool sea air. “A hundred and eighty days. Practically nothing.”

“Nice try. That worked on me last time, but I know better on this go around.” She hugged his arm, laying her head on his shoulder. “You can’t fucking believe how long a day can get, once you’re gone. It’s like living in dog years. Every day feels seven days long.”

He tugged away from her, standing up suddenly. “Veronica, I need to tell you something.”

This time, there was no stopping the stomach drop.

“Uh, herpes? Second family in Hawaii you didn’t tell me about? Deployment’s twelve months not six?” Veronica jokily reeled off worst case scenarios, her mind supplying more as soon as those jumped off her tongue.

A wave crashed, sliding up the beach closer to them than any of the others had gotten, and leaving a trail of dark bubbles across the sand when it receded. She forced her eyes away from the dark line that divided wet sand from dry.

When Logan just stared down at her, anguished, she snapped her fingers. “Out with it. You don’t get to drop an introduction like that when we don’t have a defibrillator on hand, Echolls.”

He swallowed. “I got a job offer.”

Jesus fucking Christ. And right after she’d told him she’d follow him anywhere. Which probably meant this job was far, far away, and he hadn’t wanted to tell her because he knew she wouldn’t want to go. Also, he hadn’t already turned it down, which meant he really, really wanted to go.

Her mind raced in the split second after he said it, before he went on to say, “It’s a flight instructor, here in San Diego. I’d still be flying, but no more deployments. They’re the positions everyone fights over when they’re ready to retire. Well, not retire but come off active duty, you know. The positions don’t open up that often. The opening’s not even posted yet, not officially. My CO took me aside and told me if I wanted it, he’d recommend me personally. He knows you came back to me, knows how I feel about you. Knows…” Logan swallowed. “Knows my whole life isn’t just with the squadron anymore.”

She came to her feet. “Oh my god, Logan, that’s amazing. Why do you look—”

The word _retire_ hit her a second after his devastated expression, the pleading in his eyes he wouldn’t voice. And she understood. It was an out-to-pasture position. The kind of promotion hotshot fighter pilots didn’t want. It was the kind of thing you did for the ol’ ball and chain, to keep her happy.

Veronica swallowed, and tried not to taste how close it was, the possibility of having him with her, every day. Maybe it was all her talk about passion and feeling what it was to _want_ something again but right now, she wanted him to stay with her so bad it ached all the way into her fingernails.

He flew dogfights in war zones. That’s what he did, it’s why he loved to be out on the Truman. It was why every day he was gone was infinitely more dangerous than his shoreside duties when he got to come home to Neptune every night.

She wet her dry lips with a dry tongue. “And he didn’t tell you until the night before you deployed for six months? Or you didn’t tell _me_ until the night before you deployed, when it was too late for you to stay home?”

She didn’t even need to watch his face fall to know it was true. Damn it, damn _him._

She spun away, looking at the ocean. Why couldn’t he have fallen in love with something less dangerous than flying? Or he could even love flying, but like, planes that people didn’t shoot at? Ones that didn’t tip and spin as fast as billion dollar tops full of explosives.

“I’m a selfish bastard.” His voice scraped from behind her. “Not used to making decisions that affect other people, because I’m not used to having anybody around who gives a fuck.” His hands came to rest on her shoulders, big and warm and so precious.

Even now, furious and conflicted, she couldn’t help but savor the touch she wouldn’t get to feel again for months. That she wouldn’t get to ever feel again if anything went wrong on this deployment.

He tried to turn her to face him. She resisted at first, not ready, but he didn’t let go and she couldn’t reject the pleading she could feel in his touch. She let him turn her around, the sand shifting under her feet.

Why did they hurt each other so much, she and Logan, just by being in love?

“I heard you when you said that you didn’t change your life _just_ for me,” he said when his brown eyes met hers, so achingly tender she could hardly look at him. “But you made sacrifices for me and I owe you the same. I can’t give up the Navy, or flying. It’s what plugs me in, what made me feel like a person who was worth a damn for the first time in my life. But if you ask me to, I’ll come home for good.” He hesitated. “I mean, I’ll still get to fly, I’ll just be teaching, not fighting. I won’t be with my squadron, but I’ll still see them, and I’ll still be a part of the Navy. It’s a good job, and a promotion. A compliment, really, that they’d even give it to me without more years of active duty under my belt.”

All of which sounded like he was trying to convince himself, not her.

“What…” She could barely force the words out. “What do _you_ want? If I wasn’t around, what would you do?”

She cursed herself for the question as soon as she asked it, because they both knew what he’d done when she wasn’t part of the equation. He’d volunteered for every deployment, every dangerous mission, every hour of flight time he could get his hands on. That’s what he really wanted. And everything else was just a favor he was doing for her that he might someday decide she hadn’t been worth.

So few people ever made it to be pilots, or got as good as he was, and you could only do it for a few years before you were too old. This was his time. She shouldn’t want him to do anything else. She should be _glad_ for him to leave and do what he loved.

But it haunted her, remembering the sallowness of every moment when he was gone, and she couldn’t un-know what a deployment was really like. It hung in her stomach like a chunk of dead meteor, heavier than all her bones.

“If you weren’t around,” he said. “I wouldn’t care what I did for work, because nothing matters as much as you do.”

He tipped his forehead against hers, gripping her arms so tight she could feel the tremors he was trying to press out of his hands.

“ _Fuck_ , I love you, Veronica. So much. There’s no one like you, nothing like you. Not even skipping a plane like a pebble across the top of the clouds…” He let out a long breath and in that longing sound, she could almost picture it. The exhilaration, the god-like control of being able to fly a plane that fast, in any direction in the universe you felt like pointing it. Carrying the firepower to blow away anything in your path.

He’d give that up. For her. Tiny, selfish, work-obsessed little her who couldn’t even remember to shut the high cupboard doors that she was too short to notice, even though he always banged his head into them when she left them open.

He kissed her hair. “Think about it, okay? Whatever you want, I’ll do. But let’s go home, for now. I don’t have nearly long enough before I have to leave you.” His fingertips brushed the backs of her shaking wrists.

_Don’t you get it? You never had to leave at all._

But she swallowed down the words and all she could see on the walk back to the parking lot was a billion-dollar plane, skimming across the tops of the clouds like it could fly forever and never get tired.

#

They didn’t even make it to the bed for the first round, but defiled the kitchen counter instead. Recovering from the first round led to a second round in the shower, and by the time they made it to bed, Logan’s mood had shifted from desperate and passionate to painfully sweet.

He took his time stroking every inch of her skin, snuggling and warming her like he was tucking her in safe and sound until he could come back to her. He kept it up until tears started to leak from her eyes, and then he’d kissed them away. The clock had registered a time in the single digits by then, but still he didn’t rush. The third time they came together, he surged into her with long, gentle strokes and no hurry at all. When they finally finished, it was like breath washing over them.

Inevitable and perfect and shattering.

The lovemaking left Veronica’s heart quivering in the center of her chest and even as his ragged breaths smoothed into sleep, she wouldn’t let her eyes close. Logan could sleep through anything since he joined the service. She teased him about it once, how soldiers were supposed to be hyper alert. He laughed and said she must have mistaken him for one of those jar head grunts. On an aircraft carrier, when you were sleeping there was always someone else standing watch, so it was easy to relax.

Tonight, he was on his side, but he’d ended up on her pillow instead of his, so it wasn’t tall enough to match the height of his shoulder. She’d have to wake him in a while so he wouldn’t have a kink in his neck. For now, she watched the round muscles of his arm rise and fall with his breaths. The way the sheet hung low on his slim hips. The tiny scar on his chin that had been there since high school.

He hadn’t wanted to tell her about this job—maybe ever, or maybe just until it was too late, so he would get to go on one last deployment no matter what. He’d chosen to leave her for half a damn year and had been pretending for all the rough weeks leading up to it that they had no choice.

Even four nights ago, when he’d been holding her on the couch, watching Harlots, and she’d dissolved into tears with no warning at all because she couldn’t _stand_ the idea of not having him there, warm at her back. He hadn’t said a word about not actually having to go.

It felt like a betrayal.

She knew Logan, though. If the job had come up at all close to the deployment, he wouldn’t want to swap out for another pilot without time for his squadron to train with them before they were thrown into active duty. It would leave the squadron weak, not the perfectly honed team she knew they were, and it would be not just hard but _impossible_ for Logan to do something he knew might put his friends in danger.

Veronica could still remember the way he’d lit up after he’d pounded Gorya Sorokin into the floor of the cafeteria in college, and how he’d laughed. Nothing made Logan feel more himself than protecting the people he loved, and she hated that she couldn’t hate him for it.

She’d gone to a Navy social function with him exactly once, right after his first deployment. Before that, she’d been used to Logan never letting his guard down with anyone but her. Seeing him, relaxed and being himself with a whole group of people she didn’t even _know_ …it was unbearable in a way she never could have expected.

It made those nine years apart loom so much larger than she could swallow. Plus, all that ridiculous pomp and circumstances and incomprehensible names for everything and…yeah, not her scene.

Still, she loved that he’d become a pilot. She could picture it so clearly, him swooping between his friends and danger with excruciating speed. His hands precise and deadly on the controls. His focus absolute. She couldn’t help but be thankful that the Navy had given him purpose, and discipline, and people he could trust besides just Dick fucking Casablancas.

Logan murmured in his sleep and Veronica let her hand settle over his. Softly, softly, because she didn’t want to steal what little rest he could get tonight. His knuckles were large and rough, his fingers agile. They twitched, then eased again, and she wondered what he was dreaming about. His mouth always looked vulnerable when he slept, and it stabbed her in the heart a little, to see it.

She’d told him tonight that he’d shown her what love really was, but did she actually know? There was that chemistry, that pull between them that made her believe in fate and Gods and all sorts of things that slipped and played between the layers of reality you could see and touch and measure in a court of law. But then there was also the way she liked him. Respected him.

In high school and college, she hadn’t liked a lot of the things he was, but the tidal pull of him kept drawing her back until she was won over by all the parts of him she did like: his gentleness, how he’d do _anything_ for a friend—even though he assumed every person on earth would, left to their own devices, screw him over. The sense of honor that he couldn’t set aside, not even for her, or to keep himself safe.

She’d always loved him—tsunami not kitchen faucet—but these days, she liked a lot more of who he was. And considering that, it might not be a good idea for him to change jobs and change so much of what had made him into the person she now respected.

They were alike in more ways than it appeared on the surface, she and Logan, though that was easier to admit now that he’d grown into—arguably—a more responsible and successful adult than she was.

They couldn’t live on love alone, no matter how many days they laughingly swore they weren’t going to leave the bed. They needed that sense of purpose, too. The mystery to solve, the innocent to protect. And once they were locked into something they were passionate about, neither one of them was capable of giving it up, no matter how many danger signs they blew past.

Veronica closed her eyes, feeling the subtle brush of his skin over hers every time his hand moved with a breath. At some point, her toes had snuggled under the warmth of his calf.

He mumbled and shifted close to her, his hand fumbling sleepily until it found the curve of her waist, then relaxing again. He’d always been like that: cuddly and given to spontaneous displays of affection. Veronica liked to show her love by doing things for people: solving cases, wreaking destruction upon their enemies, maybe baking the occasional snickerdoodle or two. But Logan craved touch, gentle and affectionate contact. It hurt her, understanding why he needed that so badly. It hurt her even more, thinking of him floating on a cold hunk of metal for six months without anyone to hold him or even give him a friendly hug now and then.

Somehow, she didn’t think fighter pilots on deployment were into cuddle puddles.

Maybe he hated to go back on his promises, but he was secretly longing to take this instructor job and stay home with her. Maybe he just needed her to play Bad Cop so he could. She knew he hated to leave her, and how much he worried about her going on dangerous cases with him too far away to watch her back. She’d picked up a stalker during his last deployment and it had driven him half out of his mind before she’d finally gotten enough evidence to get the stalker locked up.

But even when Logan was home, every day, she left him to go out and dig into the web of crimes and lies that was Neptune, California. Interrogating people he’d never met, solving problems he’d never heard of. And he was about to embark on a ship populated by more people than their hometown, to fight enemies in places he wasn’t even allowed to name to her.

What did it mean to build a life together, when there were so many parts of their lives that were separate? Even now, she had no idea.

She ached so badly for him to stay with her that she wanted to ask him to give up part of what made him who he was. Was that really love? Could it ever be love, if secretly you wanted to ask someone to give up their career and, therefore, be a subtly different person?

Veronica scooted closer, hating herself and every one of the the thoughts running through her head. Logan woke just enough to gather her into his chest, letting out a rumbly little huff of a breath into her hair. She closed her eyes against the sting of tears and tried to push all the question marks out of her head. At least for tonight. So that before he left she could savor the feel of him, safe and sleepy and loving her more than anyone in her life ever had.


	3. Epic Guilt Trip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: I beg your deep and committed forgiveness for all the ways in which I am about to butcher Naval terminology and protocol. I wasn’t even able to find out if there IS a ceremony when aircraft carriers leave port, though I found out a lot about what happens when they return. Let’s all just plead fictional license, shall we?
> 
>   
> Instead of factual accuracy, I’m going for emotional accuracy here. I work as a semi-nomadic wildlife biologist, traveling wherever the job takes me, and until recently, my husband was in the same line of work. Community is a huge part of what makes that lifestyle bearable. There’s a group of only about a hundred of us with the same desert wildlife specialty, and we make a little family everywhere we go. This fall, I was on a job where none of the other bio community was there, and I was apart from my husband for 9 weeks, and it was very hard on me. I called one of my friends who is a long time Army wife and asked how on earth she lasted all those years of deployment and she said she never could have done it without the supportive on-base community of other wives. That idea, partially because of my own work and situation, really caught my interest and so that’s how this chapter came about.

The crowd at the pier was insane, and Veronica mostly hung back, staring up at the unbelievably tall walls of the aircraft carrier that—somewhere—held her boyfriend. She’d said her goodbyes to Logan this morning when she dropped him off on base, but she couldn’t bring herself to go home, afterwards. She wanted just one more…something. Something more momentous than watching him disappear into a beige building. However, this mosh pit/family picnic mashup of a crowd wasn’t exactly what the doctor had ordered.

Her phone beeped.

Mac: How is it going over there? You toss a grappling hook over the rail and go in for a boyfriend-extraction yet?

Veronica: Plead the fifth.

Mac: Dammit, I knew I should have gone with you. Can they court-martial a civilian?

Veronica: We’re about to find out…

Veronica: Seriously, though, I haven’t seen a crowd this crazy since I worked that case at Coachella.

The flags on top of the ship changed, and a wave of noise ran through the crowd. Veronica pushed up onto her toes, but she couldn’t see a thing. Maybe this meant there was finally going to be some action?

Logan had told her the send-off ceremony took forever, she probably wouldn’t be able to even spot him, and it would only make her sadder. He was right about the first one. As for the second, he was clearly underestimating the power of her telephoto lens. And that there was any lower level of sadness that she hadn’t already hit since she dropped him off.

Unfortunately, for the telephoto lens to work, she would need to be able to point it at something besides other people’s shoulder blades.

Veronica entered the crowd, tentatively edging between groups of chattering friends and tip-toeing around strollers. “Excuse me, sorry,” she murmured.

If this was anything like a rock concert, she was about to incur the ire of the people who had staked out their spot on the rail for hours ahead of time. She bet Logan would think it was just hilarious if she got punched out by a navy wife.

“Hey, we’ve got a short one here!” One of the few men scattered through the crowd called out, laying a hand on her shoulder and helping usher her toward the rail. “Let her through!”

They passed her along with smiles and nods—okay, not at all like a rock concert, at least not the black leather ones she preferred—until she was only a few people away from the pier and she could see the row of tiny, white-uniform clad sailors manning the rail of the boat. She lifted her camera, scanning the row for Logan. She focused on the highest points of the row first; the tallest sailors. But then, the row moved in her lens and she took a hard step forward, almost falling as the ship began to move and the changing image threw off her balance.

“Easy there, honey, it’s too late to go with them now.” A hand caught and steadied her.

She lowered her camera to see a woman in her early thirties with curly dark hair and a flower tucked behind her ear. “Hi. Sorry about that.” She lifted her camera again, more urgently as the ship began to make slow progress away. What if Logan was on the other side where she couldn’t see? She should have told him she was coming, made a plan for where he’d be standing. Could he see her? She should have worn something more colorful than her usual all black. Or, oh yeah, maybe told him she’d be there at all.

“Ugh, I hate when the ship first starts moving,” the woman said. “Not like I haven’t been here for hours waiting, but it still drops your stomach right out from underneath you, don’t it? I’m Betty, by the way.”

Of course she was. Veronica let her amusement show in her face as she dropped the camera long enough to shake her hand. “Veronica.”

Betty laughed. “Clearly we’re meant to be friends.” She quieted as Veronica went back to scanning. “Spot him yet?” she asked, kindly.

Veronica sighed. “I think it’s a lost cause.” She shouldered her camera strap. “Not like it really makes a difference anyway. He’s still gone.”

“For me, I make the first day Nitpick Day,” Betty advised. “Tell myself I’m going to enjoy a well-earned vacation from my hubby, and remind myself of all the ways he’s driven me crazy over the past few months. Leaving his socks all over the floor, toilet seat always up.”

She laughed. “Does that help?”

Betty’s smile was a little wobbly. “A little. But by about two months in, you better believe I’m draping his socks all over the floor myself, just so I can believe he’s about to be home.”

Veronica’s heart gave a sharp twinge and she reached out and squeezed the other woman’s arm. _Getting soft in your old age, Mars._

“What’s yours do?” Betty winked. “Forget how pretty he looked in his uniform this morning and remember all the times you almost murdered his thoughtless ass in the months when he first came home and barged right into your routine.”

Veronica shifted her weight back into her heels, keeping the polite smile on her face. This was exactly why she never came to any of these military things. She’d tried to come to the Homecoming Ceremony when Logan came back from his first deployment, and that had been a disaster. She didn’t want a bunch of well-meaning people all crying together, making her feel like a fucking cliché. She sure didn’t want to get roped into joining some knitting circle of gossiping housewives, keeping the homefires lit for their men to come home. But it would be rude not to at least answer Betty, so she glanced down.

“He leaves his stuff right where he drops it, just like yours. Like he’s waiting for the servants to come pick up after him. Since he joined the Navy, he goes around and picks it all up every morning but then, there’s still the whole rest of the day when it’s lying around, isn’t there?”

Betty laughed. “Always waiting for the mythical servants to show up, aren’t they? Men. Mine’s Bob Vance, down in the galley. Not that I can get him to cook at home, mind you. What’s yours do?”

“He’s a pilot.”

Betty’s face lit up. “You’re married to one of the flyboys? Rawrrrr,” she playfully growled. “Wish I’d have test-driven a few of those back when I was lower mileage. Which one?”

“Log—” She stopped. Military crowd, they always wanted to know the ranks. “Um, I mean Lieutenant Logan Echolls.”

“Echolls? Whoa, he’s the one who—”

“Was suspected of Bonnie DeVille’s murder,” Veronica finished, well used to this song and dance. “Yes, I know, but that was just tabloid speculation. He was never even formally charged before they found who really did it.”

Betty looked affronted. “I was going to say he’s the one who pulled off a night landing on the carrier with one engine out and severely damaged comms. You know how hard it is to catch the wire without all your instrumentation?”

“I do, unfortunately,” Veronica said, thinking of Logan’s late squadmate Bilbo, who’d crashed his plane just in a training exercise.

“Anyway, the flight squad’s ladies are over there.” Betty pointed to a tight-knit group of women closer to the boat. “I can see how it’d be easy to miss them in this madhouse.”

“No, it’s okay.” Veronica edged toward the parking lot. “I don’t really know any of them.”

She had friends, dammit. She didn’t need pity friends by proxy borrowed from Logan’s coworkers.

“Ah, you’re one of those.” Betty patted her arm. “I used to be one of those, until after Bob’s second deployment, when I had to be medicated and my hair started falling out. Listen, sweetie, take it from me. For the next 179 days, those women over there are the only ones on earth who will really know what you’re going through. After the first fourteen of those days, they’re also going to be the only ones who want to listen to you bitch about it.”

Veronica choked on an unexpected laugh. “Okay, well, I admit my friends from home would probably agree with you about that second part.”

“Come on.” Betty grabbed Veronica’s hand and went charging through the crowd. Over her head, Veronica tried not to stare at the steadily shrinking aircraft carrier and the tiny white dots of sailors still waving along the rail. “Ricki, hey! Found Echolls’ girlfriend wandering at loose ends.”

“Ah, Veronica.” A tall blonde she’d never seen before turned to her with a small smile. “The one who works too much to make it to _any_ of the barbecues. Glad to see you could at least make an exception to send him off.” Her handshake was limp, like a dead fish, and Veronica released it as soon as she could, shifting her weight toward the parking lot.

“So great to meet you. I’ve got to run, though. As you said, work calls.”

“I bet.” Ricki turned away and Betty glared at her back, shaking her head as she turned to the next woman, breaking into her conversation.

“Hey, this is Echolls’ girlfriend. Do you happen to know who his WSO is?”

Veronica’s brain, crammed full of ranks and acronyms from trying to decode Logan’s first deployment, translated this to mean the Weapons System Officer: the guy she’d always thought was the co-pilot in a plane. Basically, Goose in Top Gun, if you translated from Logan-speak to Veronica-speak.

“Oh yeah, Rod’s his wizzo,” the pretty Asian girl said, then smiled at Veronica before she went back to her conversation.

“Rodriguez?” Betty paused for a second. “Aurelio Rodriguez, and his wife is—hey Serena!” She waved and a woman in a pretty dress perked up and waved.

Betty hauled Veronica forward as she tried not to roll her eyes at all the WSO’s and wizzo’s. Leave it to the Navy to give something a too-long title, shorten it to an acronym, and then lengthen it again to a nickname, totally ruining the point of shortening it in the first place.

“Serena, hey! This is Echolls’ girlfriend—”

“Veronica Mars!” Serena’s slim face brightened, the dark wings of her eyeliner making her deep blue eyes glow. She reached for Veronica’s hand and shook it with surprising strength. “I can’t thank you enough for what you did for him, with that whole Bonnie DeVille nonsense. The squad wanted to throw you a party, after, but it all happened right before the last deployment and Logan refused to share you with any of us for the little bit of time he had left.”

“See?” Betty beamed. “Serena will take good care of you. And if she doesn’t, honey, you just call me anytime. Give me your phone.” Once Veronica unlocked it and surrendered the device—watching carefully for any kind of con—Betty typed in her name and number. She added her email and passed it back, patting Veronica on the back. “So glad to meet you, honey.” She disappeared into the seething crowd and Veronica tried to press back a wisp of panic at being abandoned.

_You can leave whenever you want. If you can handle a murderer with only a golf club, you can handle the Navy version of a tea party._

She tossed another look at the aircraft carrier. If Logan could see her discomfort now, he’d bust her chops for weeks.

She turned back to Serena, resigned to playing nice for at least a few more minutes. The other girl was wearing a white fifties style dress with a fitted waist and flared skirt in a print of deep blue roses. It would have looked right at home at the Zeta Theta party she attended in college. Except that Serena had two full sleeves of tattoos to match, blue roses growing around black rifles and pistols in extraordinary, realistic detail. Then vines and thorns snaking out over her delicate collarbone and bridging the gap between each tattooed arm.

“Wow, your tattoos are kind of amazing.” The genuine compliment slipped out and Serena grinned.

“Hey, thanks! I have another couple of sessions I’m saving up for. Still need to fill in these gaps.” She showed Veronica the empty places on inside of her wrist and her shoulder.

Veronica nodded, one eye on the shrinking ship. She was strangely loath to take off before Logan’s ship was out of sight, even though she’d never spotted him at the rail. And Serena seemed much more human than limp-fish-handshake girl, so a little playing nice with Logan’s squadmates’ families probably wouldn’t kill her. Probably.

“So how did you and Rod—I mean Aurelio meet?” It felt weird to call the man by the nickname Logan always used.

“In basic training.” Serena bent down to adjust the blanket over a toddler sleeping in a stroller.

Veronica tried to think of a response that wouldn’t make her look like a sexist asshole who had assumed Serena hadn’t also been in the Navy just because she was wearing a bra and a dress. “What was your um, rank? Position? I’m sorry, I don’t speak Naval Acronym.”

Serena laughed. “It’s fine. I’d tell you, but then I’d have to spend ten minutes decoding it and by then you’d already be asleep. I only got out last year. Aurelio stayed home with our little guy while I did my first deployment after the birth and oh my god, it nearly killed me.” She rolled her eyes. “Being away from your baby…let’s just say it’d take a stronger woman than me to do that twice. Echolls had to learn to work with an all-new wizzo and I think he missed Aurelio even more than I did. The whining the man did on that deployment…” She whistled. “Put my toddler to shame, I tell you. I almost threw him overboard.”

Veronica laughed. “Oh, I know that whining well. You should hear him when he thinks he was getting laid and we end up having to go my dad’s for dinner instead.”

Serena snorted, and pulled a thermos out of the back of the stroller. “Speaking of, want some coffee? After the morning sex at an ungodly hour to get him out the door for that four a.m. start, I almost brought two thermoses.”

Veronica almost choked. “Um, yes please.” She hadn’t slept more than an hour, and that coffee sounded like heaven. As Serena rummaged in a diaper bag for some kind of coffee receptacle, Veronica tried not to look like a person who’d been the recipient of a 3 a.m. “Keep it down!” from the neighbors because Logan had woken her up with sweet kisses and then fucked her so hard she’d all but started speaking in tongues.

“This is clean, I swear. It’s the spare.” Serena passed over some coffee in a lid-less sippy cup emblazoned with elephants.

Veronica took a grateful gulp. “So, do you have a job on base now, or did you…retire? Leave the Navy? Whatever the natives call it.”

“I left when my contract was up. I teach at the local firearms skill school now. We teach bodyguards, elite military, crisis response personnel, you name it. We have a building-based active target system where you shoot the pop-up targets, learn how to clear a building safely, all that. You’re a PI, aren’t you? You should come by.”

“Thanks, but I get by pretty good with a taser and my wits,” she joked.

Serena shrugged. “Taser’s fine until it’s not. That’s like a knife-you’ve got to get so close to use it that they have more of a chance to take it away from you. And against multiple opponents, you’d be fucked. A little weapons training could really be a bonus. Trust me, you never want to be the only one in the room without a gun.”

Veronica sipped her coffee, the steam wafting up to steam her sunglasses as she tried not to think about all the times in her life that had been the case.

“I also teach kickboxing at the local boxing gym. I tell you what, there’s nothing like a heavy bag to make you feel sane again two months into the sex desert of a deployment.”

“Now _that_ I might take you up on.” Veronica laughed and held up her sippy-coffee-cup in a cheers. “So if Logan had to take on a new wizzo when Ro—I mean Aurelio, had to miss a deployment to take care of your son, then are they working together on this deployment? Or is Logan still with the other wizzo?”

Serena angled her a surprised glance so quick that anybody but a trained investigator would have missed it. But she didn’t get patronizing, or even miss a beat when she said, “Oh, they started working together again right after that deployment. They’re like two halves of the same brain, those boys. They don’t even finish each other’s sentences. It’s more like they speak in word salad shorthand, only saying whatever parts of the sentences they couldn’t fill in mentally, just like a syllable here and there and a lot of grunting. They only speak in full sentences to make fun of each other. It’s adorable. Of course, outside of all the friction lately.”

Veronica hesitated, then decided she wanted to know even more than she wanted Serena to think that she was already in the loop enough to know on her own. “What friction?”

Another of those whip-quick glances. “Because Aurelio still hasn’t met you and Echolls keeps making excuses for why you haven’t been to any of the barbecues, or dinners at our house when it’s just us,” Serena said it gently, but then rushed on anyway, like she didn’t want Veronica to take it the wrong way. “Aurelio thinks it’s because Logan’s embarrassed of him and doesn’t want to introduce you two, which pisses him off, and then he gets crabby, and then they bust each other’s balls twice as hard. But I get it. Men think it’s all about them, but work gets busy, you know?”

Veronica squirmed. She didn’t want to admit that was her fault and Logan was covering for her, but she also didn’t want to lie to this girl who was actually kind of awesome. Especially since she was probably packing heat in that diaper bag and was almost certainly a better shot than Veronica. “It’s not at all that Logan’s embarrassed of him, I promise. If I hear ‘Rod says’ or ‘Rod thinks’ one more time, I swear to God I’m going to make the man put a ring on it. He’s always talked about Rod more than anyone else in the squad, which now makes sense since apparently they fly together. If anything, he hasn’t introduced us because he doesn’t want me to embarrass him in front of his tough Navy buddies.”

Serena glanced away.

Fuck, apparently, she heard the lie despite Veronica’s best efforts. She exhaled. “I just…figured the barbecues are Logan’s thing, not mine, so I don’t go. I wouldn’t know anyone. I don’t even really speak the language.”

“ _You’re_ his thing,” Serena said immediately. “His squad is his thing. Is your work separate from who you are?”

Veronica swallowed, but guilt tasted more bitter on her tongue than the black coffee.

“Listen.” Serena stepped closer. “I’m not going to be one of those bitches who will guilt-trip you into every raffle and ceremony and bake sale. The only reason I’m saying anything is because A- You’re Veronica fucking Mars and everyone was insane to meet you after you saved Echolls’ ass, and then when you never came, they got a little…well, people take things personally. Which, who cares. But the thing is, Echolls is the only member of the squad who doesn’t have anyone to bring to barbecues.” She paused. “Well, except Dick, but he hardly counts. I mean, cute, yeah. Even funny sometimes. But he’s such a…you know Dick, right?”

“Casablancas?” Veronica swallowed her chuckle. “Unfortunately.”

Serena waved a hand, dismissing Dick with gratifying speed. “Anyway, we always thought Logan didn’t bring anyone because he didn’t have anyone. I mean, he had girls he was dating sometimes, but squad barbecues are for family and he’s the type that would respect that, you know?”

Veronica started to feel a little sick. By blowing him off all the times he invited her, had she really been refusing invitations to be part of his family, this family she hardly knew anything about?

“But then all of a sudden it was Veronica this, Veronica thinks that, Veronica was in the news this week, did you see? But you never appeared.” Serena’s blue eyes went soft and she ducked her head a little. “In the civilian world, your family and your job are at least a little separate, but in the military, we’re all part of the squad, every bit as much as the people on that boat. I was part of the team when I was running around on that boat and I’m part of the team now that I’m back stateside.” She smiled. “It just smells a lot better here.”

Veronica laughed, but it faded quickly despite her efforts to look unaffected. “Yeah, I know, I get it.” _Stoke those home fires, Rosie! Those rivets aren’t going to rivet themselves._

Serena looked sad. Damn, that girl had a finely-honed bullshit detector.

“Look, if I know anything about the Navy, it’s that if you’re not a part of it, you’re an outsider. If you stay an outsider in that part of Echolls—of _Logan’s_ life, sooner or later he’s going to feel like he has to choose. You or the Navy.”

Veronica’s heart jumped like she’d just found a clue. And she didn’t like it.

“And I know Logan,” Serena said quietly. “The Navy is who he _is_. If he picks you—and he probably will—he’ll be leaving himself behind. I don’t know if anyone wins in that kind of situation.”

Veronica fought to swallow, her skin feeling too thin and transparent, like everyone in this crowd could see every last thing she cared about, her every fear and shortcoming. Her breath started to come shorter.

Serena smiled and laid a hand on Veronica’s shoulder. “Come to the barbecues. They don’t stop just because the sailors are gone.”

Veronica managed a smile. “Wow, I’ve been guilt tripped to come to a social gathering before, but never quite so effectively. Logan didn’t make it seem like they were that big of a deal.”

“Well, he wouldn’t, would he? If it were important to him.”

Veronica’s eyes narrowed. “You really do know Logan, don’t you? Okay, sign me up to make the potato salad.”

“Oh Jesus, not more potato salad. Bring some ice cream or something useful, girl. Do you want to make friends or enemies here?”

Veronica laughed and the toddler in the stroller startled awake and started crying.

“Hey, Logan, shh…” Serena bent down, spilling a few Cheerios into the tray of his stroller.

Veronica just stared and when the other woman stood back up, she caught the look and laughed. “Oh! I forget sometimes. Because around the house Logan is Logan and _your_ Logan is Echolls.”

“Did you…is that just a coincidence or…” How well _did_ this woman know Logan?

“No coincidence. Aurelio was deployed most of the time I was pregnant, and…” Serena tugged at her skirt. “Well, I’m not technically supposed to know the details of what happened, much less share them. Let’s just say they got in a situation where if he’d been flying with 9 out of 10 pilots—even 9 out of 10 _Navy_ pilots, forget those Air Force goons—they wouldn’t have been able to pull off that crash landing without a mushroom cloud.” She met Veronica’s eyes, hard and unyielding as the truth. “Your man is the reason my baby still has a father, so hell yes I named our first born after Logan. Aurelio’s still pissed I did it without asking him. He had his heart set on an Aurelio Junior.”

Veronica didn’t even know how to process that. Logan had saved a man’s life, in a dire enough situation that they’d named their _baby_ after him, and he’d never even mentioned it. Serena’s comments about outsiders sank in a little deeper as Veronica’s weight sank further into her boots. She cast one more glance at the disappearing aircraft carrier.

“Mine too.” It came out as barely a whisper, and Veronica cleared her throat. “I wouldn’t have a father either, I mean. Logan pulled him out of a car crash when—Well, anyway, the other passenger didn’t make it. Without Logan, Dad wouldn’t have, either.”

Serena beamed. “You see? We sailors think quick on our feet. We’re good to have in a pinch.” She turned to the crowd around them. “Hey Allison, where’s the list?”

A brunette with one eye set slightly higher than the other appeared with a friendly smile and a piece of notebook paper divided into columns. “Is this Veronica?” She reached in for a quick, tight hug. “Seriously, thank you so much for the Bonnie DeVille thing. The guys would never admit it but they were literally losing sleep worrying Echolls would be in custody and they’d have to do the whole deployment without him. I think they put too much faith in one pilot’s guns and it’s not healthy but…” She shrugged. “There’s no arguing with his service record.” She grinned again and disappeared before Veronica could respond.

Serena laid the notebook paper out on the tray, Little Logan squealing his protest when she brushed his Cheerios off along the side.

“Put your name and phone number on the list, and what time you go to bed.”

“What?” Veronica stiffened. “Why the hell do you need to know that?”

Serena’s cheek twitched and she smiled a little sadly. “It’s always worst right before bed, isn’t it? You can distract yourself all day but when work is over, and the dog’s walked, and the baby’s put to bed, you just keep doing one more chore. Having one more glass of wine. Checking Twitter again, because there’s something missing and you don’t quite want to go to bed without it. I call it the Easter Egg feeling.”

“Uh, not sure I know what you mean.”

“Feels like my heart’s an Easter Egg. Big and round and looks whole until you open it up and it’s all hollow inside.” Serena’s deep blue eyes sparkled suddenly with tears. “It’s the damndest thing and it’s never gone away, all these years. Whenever he’s gone.” She wiped her eyes with a hard flick of her fingers. “Anyway, so we all take turns calling each other right before bed.”

Veronica handed back the pen. “No, I’m okay. I’m used to being on my own. I don’t need a call.”

“Sure, but if you’re okay, then maybe there’s somebody who needs _you_.”

Veronica shifted her weight, considered. Took her own pen out of her bag. “Yeah, okay.”

She added her name to the list, hesitated over bedtime, and then lied and put two hours earlier than she usually managed to drag herself home from the office when Logan was gone.

Serena grinned. “Man, Aurelio’s gonna be so pissed I met you before he did.”

Veronica laughed. “It’s been nice to meet you. Really. I will do my best to make the next barbecue.”

She turned toward the parking lot, but she only got a couple people away before she hesitated. Serena hadn’t been…anything like what she was expecting. But then, Logan being in the Navy hadn’t quite been what she’d been expecting either. It set her off guard to see Neptune High’s most frequent detention resident actually…respect an institution. Her cynical Logan, who didn’t believe in anyone or anything, except her. And, apparently, the US Navy.

Veronica turned back, seeking Serena in the crowd. “Hey, can I talk to you about something? What do you know about the flight instructors that work here on base?”

Serena grinned. “Ah, so Logan finally told you about the job offer?”

“You knew about that before I did?”

“Girl, we know everything.”

Veronica pointed at her. “You should have led with that, in your little guilt trip join-the-Navy family spiel. Insider intel is always the way to this girl’s heart.”

“Next time,” Serena said breezily. “And I know tons about the flight instructor position on base because I was thinking about becoming an assistant in that department before the gun range made me an offer. Do you want my opinion as a wife or as a sailor?”

“Both,” Veronica said immediately. “Please, both. Don’t bother to sugarcoat it. And hey, you have any more of that coffee?”


	4. Skype

Veronica tugged her tank top down a little bit, and felt like a sentimental idiot for wearing her tightest jeans to a Skype date where they would be hidden under the table. She was already a little self-conscious about coming home to do this, when she easily could have used the Wi-Fi at the office. She didn’t want to have this conversation with Logan at the office.

She straightened the legal pad next to her computer and reviewed her notes one more time before pushing them far enough away that Logan would never have to know she had notes for this.

Who the hell had to write bullet points for a conversation with their boyfriend?

But sometimes it was days or weeks between the times when Logan had a gap in his schedule and good enough comms to use Skype, so she didn’t want to mess this up and leave him hanging for too long before she could fix it. Bad enough that he’d had to leave before they really figured out the thing about his new job offer. It had already been four days since he shipped out, but because of various scheduling things on his side, this was the first time they would get to talk, since…then.

Her screen flickered, and Logan appeared, with his uniform crisp and his face freshly shaven. Maybe the light was different on the ship, but the lines at the edges of his eyes looked deeper, his expression more serious than it did at home. The wall behind him didn’t give her any clues, but the words he said next let her know that whatever room he was in, he must be alone.

“I need to talk to you,” he said.

“Oh, is that what this newfangled rectangle moving picture is for? Talking? I thought it was so I could try to talk you out of your shirt for a little long-distance peep show.”

That won her a strained smile, but didn’t do anything to soothe the low jangle of her nerves that had spiked into anxiety as soon as he’d dropped that very ominous opener. Before she could decide how this new development fit into her planned speech, Logan started talking, leaning into the camera like he was trying to get closer to her. 

“I shouldn’t have made it your choice. About the flight instructor job, I mean. That was just me, abdicating responsibility. Trying to put it on you, like I was giving up my career for you and I wanted you to know it was all your fault. It was the king of dick moves. It’s my responsibility, my fucking _privilege_ to make decisions about my life that include you.”

She caught her breath. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who’d been overthinking from every possible angle since their talk on the beach four days ago.

“Hey, Logan…”

“No, please, let me get this out first. I’m just…” He took a breath, his hands fidgeting on the table in front of him. “I’m an all or nothing kind of guy, mostly because I’ve never had two things in my life that I loved at the same time. I had you, and then once you were gone, I had flying. I’ve never had both at once. I’m such a lucky bastard right now that I’m just stumbling around trying to figure out how to hold on to both at once.”

The cold pit in her stomach began to warm. It wasn’t a solution, but he was so clearly with her in this, even when they hadn’t been able to talk about it at all. They were still okay.

“You don’t have to choose,” she said, taking a breath to launch into her first bullet point.

“No, don’t be a martyr just to let me off the hook, Veronica. What I’m saying is, it’s a privilege to have a choice in the first place. For that, I’m happy to learn to compromise. The night I left, I was being a drama queen.” He waved a hand, a quick flick of capable fingers. “If I teach, I still get to fly, still get to be part of the Navy, and have…I don’t know what to call it. I’ve never been part of something before, you know? Not the way I am here.”

“A community?” she offered. She wouldn’t have known what to call it before meeting Serena and the other people on the pier, but she’d gotten a peek at just an edge of it now. She was beginning to understand why it was so important to him.

“Yeah, maybe that.” His Adam’s apple bobbed, and she wondered if he had bullet points, too. Maybe written on his flight tablet in the slashes of his quick, masculine handwriting. “What I’m saying is, I’m taking the flight instructor job. This is my last deployment. I’m coming home to you.”

He’d said so much, so fast, and any piece of that could change their entire life. Her head should be spinning right now, but instead she felt steadier than she had in days. What he’d said had settled it even more firmly that what she’d written on her yellow legal pad was the _right_ thing. For him, for them. For her, too, in a way that hadn’t been obvious at first glance.

Veronica kissed her fingers and pressed them to the screen. “It’s so cute that you still think you’re calling the shots.”

Logan huffed out a little breath of a laugh, more out of relief than humor, she thought, but he waited for her to explain.

“I’ve thought about this a lot since you left. Talked to a couple of friends—one old, one new. The thing I realized is that you’re not mine, and I’m not yours.”

“I’m not sure I love where this is going.”

“You will,” she promised. “But hear me out now. I was a little slow to get it, because I’m not there with you. I don’t know what your world is like on the boat, but I do know what you’re like when you fly. Remember that one day when you guys were doing the exercises near the base and you invited me to watch?” She waited for him to nod. “The first time you went up, the planes were darting around and they were fast, you know, whatever.”

He smirked the tiniest bit at her lack of respect for what was probably world-class piloting of world-class planes.

“But then you got out and you were so _happy_ , busting everybody’s balls and hopping off the curb and…it lit you up like somebody had plugged you in for the first time in months. Then, the second time you went up, I don’t know what changed but suddenly I could tell which plane was yours. It was the way you moved. It moved like _you_. A little quicker than the others, more apt to fly into a barrel roll or flip a tight corner, like it wasn’t afraid of anything, not even gravity.”

“To be fair, most fighter pilots are kind of missing the fear gene.”

“Yeah, but flying was _you_. I didn’t really know it until I saw it. Like solving cases is me.”

He twitched, and something changed in his face.

“What?” she asked. “What was that look?”

“I just…remember having that same thought, once. Gave me déjà vu when you said it.”

“Yeah?” She waited, wondering if he might tell her more. Logan shied away from stories about his time in the service. Even when he was on deployment, he mostly turned the conversation back to what she was doing in Neptune.

“It was during OCS—the Navy’s Officer training. A bunch of us were doing this crazy obstacle course, where you have to figure out how to get through a bunch of barbed wire and walls and tunnels and shit.”

She nodded, though she’d kind of expected a story about flying, about how much he loved to be in the air.

“I was doing pretty well, getting through faster than the other guys. But I figured out this little trick, how if we worked together we could get over the wall faster, and I went back to get the other guys.” He grinned. “They gave me shit for trying to order them around, called me Hollywood like they used to. But we all finished faster, and less beat up.”

It didn’t escape Veronica’s notice that his call sign wasn’t Hollywood now, or anything to do with his famous family.

He glanced down at the table, then at the door behind him like he was wondering if anybody was out in the hall.

“When I was a kid, I always thought I’d been adopted. You know how much I hated all my parent’s friends, their parties, their weird echoey houses full of ugly art shit. I felt like an alien that had been dropped into the wrong life. The same in high school, when people were following me around because I was the popular one, had money and all the latest toys. I was just putting on a show, but I knew none of them really liked me, that I wasn’t like any of them. Not even Duncan, and he was supposed to be my best friend.” He shrugged. “Dick has been a better friend to me than Duncan ever was. And I love that guy like a brother, but we’re still nothing alike.”

She nodded, upping the volume on her laptop so she could listen more carefully. It made sense, because there’d always been an awkwardness to the way he stood, like despite his natural athleticism there was a self-consciousness that never went away. Even at parties _he_ threw, he’d end up hiding out on the balcony with her.

“That day, on the course, I was just one of the guys,” he said slowly. “And I felt like one of them, like I wasn’t different or weird. I wasn’t mocking what we were being told to do. I wanted to be there. To see how fast I could go if I pushed, find out how strong I could get if I worked for it, figure out if being smart meant I could lead a team better. Keep them safe.” He shrugged. “Spoiled little rich kid, maybe I would have liked anyplace where I finally had to work for something. But the Navy felt like a home when I really needed one. It felt like the family I always wished I had as a kid.”

His eyes focused on the screen.

“Anyway, sorry, I didn’t mean to go off on a tangent. And I’m not saying they’re my home more than you are, Veronica. That’s not what this is about. Just that like you said, it’s not just something I do. It’s who I am.”

“It’s who we both are,” she said softly, reaching for him and hitting the keyboard before she realized he wasn’t really there with her. “I need to go off and do my own thing sometimes, live my own life. It used to make me crazy when you tried to butt into my cases. I’m better about it now, about you helping me or being backup when you’re home, but I still…need my own space. And more than that, my own purpose.”

He nodded. “I get that. If I come home for good— _when_ I come home for good, that doesn’t have to change. I know who you are, Veronica, and I have no intention of getting in your way or asking you to stop investigating.”

“I know you don’t. It’s just when we were together as kids, you never had something of your own. So when we got back together as adults, I…didn’t really know to adjust and I didn’t fully get what the Navy meant to you.” She glanced away, feeling the guilt of Serena’s gaze on her, driving home all the ways she’d deliberately isolated herself from that part of his life. “I still don’t think I understand everything it means to you, but I want to. And I want that for you, Logan.”

Fuck, she hated not being able to touch him. She was so much better at expressing herself that way.

She took a breath.

“I don’t want you to take that flight instructor job. Not yet. Not until you have to. You love flying, yeah, but especially when it really matters, and you’re fighting to protect people.” Her voice hummed with intensity, shaking a little with how strongly she felt about all this. “That’s who you’ve always been, and you finally found the right place for it. You were a fighter pilot back before you even knew what the Navy was.”

His brown eyes were full of emotion and they never wavered from her. “I love you,” he said roughly. “Not just because of who you are, because obviously, but…fuck, you’re good to me.”

That got her. She twitched back from the screen, her hand jumping to her mouth as she blinked rapidly, trying not to well up.

She coughed to cover it, dredging up a sardonic smile. “I think it’s proof of how half-assed of a girlfriend I’ve been that you would even think to mention that I’m managing to treat you well at the moment.”

“Don’t do that,” he said instantly. “Don’t insult yourself and brush it off. It’s not nothing, you being this selfless. Caring so much about what’s important to me. I know it sucks having me gone, because it sucks for me, too, even though I’m busy as hell surrounded by friends and doing what I love. If it sucks this much for me, here, it’s got to be even worse for you.”

“I hate being apart, but that’s what I’m saying, Logan. I came back to Neptune for you, and because that’s where I felt like I had a purpose. I wasn’t just another lawyer in a world swimming with lawyers. I was a detective in a place that had people in need, with problems I knew how to solve when nobody else gave a damn. I don’t know much about the Navy, but I know I researched all those pretty metals you keep in your safe, and so I know every one of them says you fly like nobody else can fly.”

She paused to let that sink in.

“We need to have own purpose, our own lives apart from our relationship no matter how much we love each other. We never had balance before, Logan, and let’s be honest. I’ve never had a successful adult relationship and I have no fucking idea what I’m doing. But every Pinterest inspirational quote in the world will tell you that moderation is important, so I’m willing to give balance a whirl if you are.”

He chuckled. “We’re on the Pinterest plan of relationship dynamics now? Well in that case, God grant us the serenity to accept what we cannot change because if you really do want me to keep my wings, that’s going to mean deployments every couple of years. And that’s also going to mean being apart when both of us are in danger.”

“I think…” She took a breath. “Look, this is the part I haven’t sorted out enough yet. It’s only been four days, and you know a lot more about deployments than I do. What I do know is that we need to handle it differently this time. Last time, I was just dying every second waiting for you to get home. Worrying we wouldn’t work out when it wasn’t that honeymoon whirlwind of having just gotten back together and won your case. This time…we need to set it up somehow so we don’t feel like our lives are on hold while you’re gone. So that we’re both living, not waiting.”

He nodded, but his eyes were conflicted. “That’s going to be hard. At least for me. I’ve never been great at enjoying the moment when you weren’t in it.”

“Maybe…I know confidentiality and stuff, but maybe if you told me your favorite thing about your day. I’d like to feel more like Navy-you and boyfriend-you aren’t separate. I’ll even listen to you talk about planes, if I have to.”

“Bold sacrifice.” He smirked.

“I know, I expect to be paid in sexual favors when you get back. With interest.”

“Oh, they’ll be plenty of interest.” His smirk curved wickedly, then his eyes warmed as they held hers. God, he made that uniform look good. “But it makes sense. What you’re saying about how it’s better for us to each have our own sense of purpose, but we need to know what’s going on with each other.”

“You’ve always been good about that,” she pointed out. “Asking about my cases so you know what every clue means and you’re never lost about why I’m excited that the bellboy’s tax returns came back dirty. Plus, you were the one who thought to have me look into the babysitter’s alibi on that kidnapping case last month.” She pinched her hands between her knees, leaning into the computer. “I need to be better about understanding the Navy part of your life. I—it was a lot, when we first got together. It was easier just to ignore it, but that was not the right call. I’m sorry about that.”

“No, I get it. It’s a lot to ask. After you flew across the country for me, helped keep me out of jail, uprooted your life for—” He corrected himself. “At least partially for me. I didn’t want to ask you to so much as pass the salt after all that.”

“But deployment is just another part of your life, like sometimes I’m at home with Pony and sometimes I’m at the office. One isn’t any more real than the other. We still get to talk, be involved in each other’s day,” she said. “And let’s be honest, it’s probably good for us to be forced to talk instead of…other things. Balance, and all that.”

“I like those other things.” He put on a pout. She pretended it wasn’t adorable.

“Me too. I feel so much for you…tsunami, not kitchen faucet, remember? It’s easier to just grab you and go wild and let you feel all that, rather than try to do all this talking crap.” She made a gagging face and he laughed. “I could definitely use to get better at that. Now, thanks to this magic rectangle, I kind of have to. We’re still a part of each other’s lives, is what I’m saying. The only difference is we can’t touch all the time, but you get to fly.”

“What a Faustian bargain,” he said, with feeling.

“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds suitably dire, so I’ll agree.” She nodded, then caught sight of the time with a grimace. “Oh, and hey Logan? Will you do something for me?”

“Anything.”

“Go get Aurelio.”

His chin jerked back. “Rod? Why do you want to use up our Skype time talking to my wizzo?”

“Because he thinks you’re embarrassed of him, and that’s why I never come with you when you go to his house.”

“What? No, he doesn’t. He’s fine.”

“Serena told me.”

‘’Serena? When did you talk to his wife—” He stopped and the confusion cleared from his face. “You went to the send-off ceremony.” He smirked, but there was a genuine pleasure in his eyes she couldn’t ignore. “You’re getting sentimental in your old age, Mars.”

“Yeah, yeah, I went to the stupid boat launch shindig.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “And it was every bit as depressing as you said it would be, especially since I couldn’t spot you on the boat.”

“I thought I saw you there. Just this one spot of black in a sea of red, white and blue. But for years, I always used to think I saw you when we were shoving off, so I thought…” He glanced away, looked a little shy. “But you were really there. Damn.”

“Yup. And nobody even tried to scam me into joining a bake sale.” She looked away, her guilt making the joke fall flat. “I met the other wives and girlfriends and the two husbands, and turns out I’ve been kind of a snooty, sexist bitch about the whole thing. I joined the call circle and I’m going to go to the barbecues.”

“Did you meet Lanessa yet?” Logan asked instantly. “Bumbly’s girl?”

“Refuses to let him put a ring on it but wears his old dog tags everywhere? Works as a cop? Yup, I met her. She’s awesome.”

“I always thought you and her would get along. Well, and Serena, who’s a stone cold badass. Did I tell you she beat me at arm-wrestling once?"

“What?” Veronica eyed his biceps. “I mean she’s tough, but honestly Logan…how?”

“She kicked me in the balls, under the table.”

Veronica burst out laughing.

“Said winning wasn’t about who had the biggest muscles, it was about who had the biggest brain, and I ought to try using mine sometime.” Logan grinned. “I tried to steal her from Rod after that. She wouldn’t go for it. Great tattoos, right?”

“Yeah. Made me re-think maybe getting one.” Veronica propped her hand on her chin. “You like them, don’t you? The guys in your squadron.”

He shrugged. “They’re not assholes, not like we were surrounded by in high school. I mean, it takes all kinds to keep a boat going and I don’t get along with everybody in the squadron, but I can _work_ with all of them. I know they have my back and I’m proud to have theirs. The Navy, something about it, it keeps people’s eyes on what’s important, you know? Not like all the rest of that petty bullshit and fake shit we both grew up around.”

“Yeah. I see what’s important.” She rubbed the goosebumps that had risen on her arms. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize how much a part of your life your job was. I’m sorry I haven’t tried to be a part of that. The Navy, the ceremonies, and all the barbecues and everything.”

“It’s fine. I didn’t know…to ask, honestly. I didn’t know it mattered to me.”

“But it does.”

He made a dismissive sound. “I knew you were uncomfortable because you didn’t know any of the people or the lingo, so it was no big deal if you didn’t want to go glad hand a bunch of strangers at a barbecue, or sit through another ceremony with lots of flag waving and salutes. But my squad…I would like you to know them. For them to know you. Yeah. I think I would like that, if you were willing.”

She took a breath and held it until she could trust herself to speak. “I’m so proud of you, you know that?”

“Jesus Christ, Veronica, I’m serious please don’t cry.” This time he was the one who reached for her and hit the screen instead. “I can’t take it when you cry and I’m not there.”

She wiped her eyes quickly, laughing. “You can’t take it when I cry and you _are_ here.”

“Yeah, but at least then I can distract you with orgasms.” His gaze went to the upper right of the screen, to the clock. “Do you have another minute to talk?”

“Of course.” Skype calls were sacred. During his first deployment, she’d once cuffed a bank robber to the bar in her shower so she wouldn’t miss her scheduled call with Logan before she hauled the criminal to the sheriff’s office.

“Sit tight,” he said. “I’ll go get Aurelio. He’s a real poor substitute for orgasms, I can tell you from experience, but at least he’s funny, which should keep you from crying.”

She smiled. “If he’s anything like his wife, I’m in for a treat.”

Logan scooted his chair out, then paused, the patch on his uniform that read **Echolls** catching her eye. “Veronica, are you sure? About…everything, I mean.”

“I love you.” The image of him swam as her eyes began to water again, and she smiled so he would know she meant it. “And I’m absolutely sure.”


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Did you guys see? They’re making a Top Gun 2! The preview had some panty-incinerating fighter jet flying sequences. Thought fellow fans of Navy!Logan might be interested.

“We seriously have to get out of bed, Logan.”

“Seriously.”

“I have so much to do before all our Navy friends get here, and it’s frankly immoral of you to keep using your naked body to distract me.”

“Morals? What morals? When have I ever claimed to have morals?”

“C’mon, I thought you liked our friends.”

“Friends? What friends?”

#

“Not to be the devil’s advocate here, Veronica, but I do think if you stopped kissing me, it might be easier to get out of bed.”

“The kissing was not my fault. You tempted me with your naked body! The court agrees I had a complete lack of culpability given the extenuating circumstances.”

“Well, I was going to put on clothes, so that you wouldn’t be either tempted or distracted, but to do that, I’d have to leave the bed.”

“That’s…really going to be a problem for me.”

“Clearly.”

#

“Okay, I’m going to just go for it, on the count of three.”

“One, two…”

Veronica lept out of bed, stumbled across the room and threw on a pair of panties before she even fully registered they were on inside out. Well, no helping that now.

“You went on two,” Logan complained, linking his hands behind his head and leaning back against the crumpled pile of blankets that they’d heaped up once the pillows got lost somewhere.

“Uh, _yeah_ ,” she said, refusing to glance back at the bed or how perilously low that sheet was riding on his abs. “Last time I tried that, you locked down on three, and once you grab me, I forget I’m supposed to struggle.”

While he was on deployment, his squadron—and Serena, via text message—had a contest to see who could improve the most at pullups. Since Logan had started out being able to do the most in the unit, he’d had to work extra hard in order to improve his count by the time they came back. He still hadn’t won, but the results of how hard he tried were so excruciatingly well-cut that Veronica still hadn’t been able to look at him without losing her breath and going a little cross-eyed.

Despite many attempts. And much dedicated practice.

“Aren’t you going to shower? We both smell like…well, like we haven’t gotten out of bed in eighteen hours.”

“Yes, that was the plan. Five hours ago. I think we both know how the ‘oh I’ll just stay naked long enough to shower’ plan went. We probably should have set the welcome home barbecue for the fifth day after you guys got back, not the second.”

She staggered to the dresser and yanked on a pair of jeans.

Logan frowned. Not that she was looking back toward the bed to be able to see that. Because she wasn’t. That way, there be abs. Or dragons. Danger, in whatever form. She could _not_ look back at the bed if she wanted this barbecue to happen. That had been clearly established over the course of the last five hours of her attempts to stop touching her beautiful boyfriend long enough to get ready to have their Navy friends over.

“You’re not walking too well, love. I thought you said you weren’t sore.”

“And you thought I wouldn’t lie?” She tossed him an incredulous look, and immediately regretted it when her willpower noticably weakened. “Your tongue was involved, for Christ’s sake.” She tipped over trying to get the skinny jeans on, and just accepted it, waving her legs in the air to get them pulled the rest of the way on. “All your friends are going to know I’ve been fucking your brains out all day when I walk in there like Clint Eastwood after a lot of hard riding on the posse trail.”

“All the guys just got back to town, too. All their ladies will be walking just like you.”

She stopped in her wriggling and smiled up at him from the floor. “There’s something kind of nice about that. Guess we’ll be amongst our own kind.”

He got a funny look on his face and cleared his throat. Veronica pulled out a drawer from her position lying flat on her back and fumbled out a shirt, not bothering with a bra. She’d send Logan to the store for supplies, and then shower and change when his tempting self was gone so she wouldn’t have to jump him again.

“Okay, so there will be volleyball, but Blaine and Henry cannot, under any circumstances, be placed on the same team,” she advised him. “They also can’t be placed on opposite teams. Or anywhere near a body of water, or a sharp object. Please help me run interference on this one, because Lanessa and Betty are on guard, but Lanessa’s too blunt and Betty’s so chirpy everybody can tell immediately when she’s trying to hide something. You’re the master of smooth misdirection.”

“How do you even know that Blaine and Henry don’t get along?”

Veronica threw him an incredulous look. There were two gay couples in Logan’s squadron, and Henry was the sailor of one couple, while Blaine was the civilian of the other couple. The other members of the foursome all got along great in any combination except Henry and Blaine. Everybody knew that.

“You’ve never even met Henry, because he’s been on the ship with me for the last six months,” he persisted.

She rolled to her feet and stuck out her hand. “Hi, I’m Veronica Mars. Have we met?”

He took her hand and used it to topple her back into the bed, grinning fiercely as he rolled her underneath him and kissed his way from her mouth down to her belly, starting back upwards again as he peeled the tee-shirt away from her skin. “You’re off your game, Mars. Can’t believe you fell for that.”

She was busy watching his back muscles flex. “I uh…meant to do that,” she said a little faintly.

He made it under her tee shirt and just pulled it down over his head, tucking himself inside next to her breasts. His breath made a warm little rush against her skin as he let out a happy-sounding sigh. She stroked his head through the stretched-out cotton.

“Why are we having a barbecue again?” he asked, his arms hugged tight around her waist.

“Because we’re stupid?”

She loved the way his whole body went slack and he immediately started to drift off as soon as his skin was touching hers. He twitched once, already starting to doze. She bent and kissed the lump of his head, then tugged the tee shirt off so she could wriggle out from under him.

“Sleep,” she ordered as she dropped another kiss on his shoulder. “I don’t need help to get things ready.”

“Don’t you have to cook like a thousand pounds of food?” he asked, rolling onto his side and giving her sleepy brown eyes. “Do I look like the kind of asshole who lets his girlfriend cook a thousand pounds of food for a bunch of other assholes whose faces he has already looked at way too many times over the last six months?”

“This is a Veronica Mars barbecue. The cookies are homemade and everything else is takeout.”

He laughed. “Of course it is.”

“So sleep.” She touched his face. “I have people coming over to help set up.” She checked her phone. “Who were due an hour ago. Huh, wonder why we didn’t hear them knock?”

Logan grinned wolfishly. “Oh no, I wonder why they could have been late.” He reached for her and she started to laugh.

“Damn, they really are our people.”

“But if they’re going to be late…” Logan coaxed.

“Then we might as well pass the time as best we can until they get here.” Veronica nodded as she crawled back into bed. “That’s just plain good sense.”

#

In the last moment before everyone else showed up, Serena pulled Veronica aside. Her black tank top left her tattoos bare, blue and black and gorgeous as they curled up her arms. “Remember, it doesn’t matter if all the guys like you.”

Veronica arched an eyebrow. “Well, shit, if I’d known that, I wouldn’t have baked so many cookies.”

Serena ignored her, as she often did when Veronica was snarking just for the sake of snarking. “We’re family,” she said. “What matters isn’t that you like each other. What matters is that you’re there for each other.”

“Good. That means I can eat all the cookies.”

#

When Veronica told Logan they were hosting the squadron’s welcome home barbecue, he might have been a little nervous.

Veronica had never been particularly…excited about the Navy, or any of the people in it. His first clue that that had changed was the food. It was takeout, yes, but specifically everybody’s favorites. He recognized every dish from homesick rants in the last two months on the boat, down to the Pad Thai Henry rhapsodized about from that place two towns over that used pistachios instead of peanuts.

She’d baked twelve kinds of cookies, set up coolers of beers and the fancy sodas all the wives liked. There were peanut butter cookies with Splenda for Blazes, who was diabetic. Ordered gluten free stuff from that vegan place for Bambi’s girlfriend, who was celiac. And okay, she could have gotten all that from some kind of food allergies and preferences list, but once people started rolling in, Veronica knew _all_ of them. Even the guys who’d been on the boat with him who she couldn’t have met yet.

She was Veronica Mars, so he wouldn’t put it past her to research them down to their blood type, high school transcripts, and most recent UTI, but the way she talked to people was more than that. Like how she busted Swampy’s balls like crazy, but was soft and sweet with Elvis, who got defensive and snappy with people he didn’t know. He would have thought she heard all about the guys from their girlfriends, but she took extra time with the single guys, who really didn’t have anybody but their parents and their bros to come home to. After the third one of those she turned the charm on for, Logan took it upon himself to take over the introductions to _his girlfriend_ , Veronica.

Which didn’t stop Red Light from giving her the full flirtatious offensive. Of course. The guy wasn’t the best at taking no for an answer.

She navigated the group of his Navy buddies so effortlessly it was like a fish who had just found their school.

He didn’t know what the fuck to think.

Because okay, Veronica was good at disguising herself to fit in. She could study and learn to mimic any group of people within minutes. Match their lingo, their clothes, the way they moved. She’d had to do it for cases for years, and hadn’t lost her touch in all those years of law school. More than once, he’d been hurt and a little annoyed, knowing she was capable of that and had never really tried, when it came to the Navy.

But even more than seeing her finally make an effort to fit it, it weirded him out in the moments when he could see that she _wasn’t_. Trying, that is. Especially with Serena and Lanessa, but also with Swampy and Blaine. She was being…herself. As acerbic and casual and unguarded as Veronica really ever got with anybody but him.

It made the base of his throat tight, and his legs twitchy, and he wasn’t really sure if he was jealous or dangerously fucking touched.

Right now, she had her back to him, her shoulder blades bare and delicate above the edge of her drifty little sun dress. She looked more graceful than anything he’d seen in months. He couldn’t help but stare. And okay, maybe eavesdrop a little.

“I just don’t understand why Henry has to be such a caveman about hogging the volleyball court,” Blaine was saying. “We get it, asshole, you have the _hint_ of visible abs. If you squint. So of course you’re going to pretend to be overheated after the first serve, but that doesn’t mean we all don’t know the real reason you want to take off your shirt when it’s sixty-two degrees.” He whistled the first few notes of “ _You’re So Vain_.”

“Blaine,” Veronica said flatly. “Your husband is home, you’re getting enough sex to make Mick Jagger look like a monk, and if you don’t enjoy it and stop bitching about Henry, I’m going to make you regret it.”

“Regret talking shit about Henry? Never. That’s just a plain good use of my years here on earth. St. Peter would agree.”

“Mmm, but how about an IRS audit? Still a good use of your years here on earth? Because if I call up a friend in the bureau and explain that you’ve been writing off six-foot-tall Michael Stokes’ prints as ‘decoration’ for your boxing gym, you might be too busy to complain about poor old Henry.”

Blaine affected a theatrical little shiver. “You’re so vicious. And I’m not sure I appreciate you taking Michael Stokes name in vain.”

“Uh-huh, but you know I’m not bluffing.”

Logan grabbed a handful of bison skewers off the table—more decent food than he’d seen in months—and headed to join his girlfriend.

“Are you going to the base thing on Monday?”

He listened with half an ear to them chatting about the schedule, the corner of his mouth kicking up to hear Veronica casually firing off military acronyms like she’d been raised on base.

He finished his last skewer, tossed the sticks in a trash can, and slid his hands up the sides of her waist. “Excuse me, I need to borrow the hostess. Important questions.”

Blaine looked him up and down with a smile tugging at his pursed lips. “I think I know what she’s about to be ‘hosting’. Go on, you crazy kids. Have fun.”

Logan laid a hand over her belly, caught her fingers with his opposite, and spun the two of them together like they were dancing. One round, two, and the third brought them around the side of the building and to sweet, sweet privacy.

They didn’t have a yard, so Veronica had commandeered a section of the public beach in front of their house, securing it from bimbos and surf bums with the expedient of unlawfully installed crime scene tape and—he suspected—more than one crackling threat from her taser.

“That last sentence was so much alphabet soup, it belonged on Sesame Street,” he teased, but couldn’t help the smile he knew was sneaking onto his face.

“Navy lingo turn your crank, flyboy? Maybe you and I need to do a little PT.”

“Weak.”

She laughed. “Eh. I tried.”

Logan skimmed his knuckles down her cheek, trying to think of some way to explain how huge it made his heart feel to watch her with his people. Not running scared from that part of him or ignoring it, not trying to be some stereotypical Navy wife that she thought he might want, but just being wholly herself. And letting him be himself. And speaking his language and laughing with his friends and…

He kissed her instead, and words didn’t seem so important after that. It was a long time before they made it back to the party.

#

Veronica was going to kill a man if she didn’t get her hands on a cheeseburger. The takeout had run out and Logan had busted out burgers from the freezer to fill the gap, but as soon as they came off the grill, they were devoured by hungry, hungry sailors. She’d had to sneak up to the house and stuff herself with a handful of Fritos just to wait for the next batch. Now, she was filling a plate with the second round of cookies—because she was too smart to put them all out at once, or not everyone would get some—before rejoining the fray.

It was a little weird, meeting the guys fresh off the boat. She’d heard so much about all of them already, seen pictures and heard all the most embarrassing stories. Plus, all the stuff she’d dug up that she wasn’t supposed to know. But really, it wasn’t like she was going to trust the military to choose the guys who had Logan’s back out there. She needed to know for herself if they were worth a damn.

Turns out, weirdly, they mostly were.

Even more weird was meeting them when all her impressions had been colored by hearing about them from someone who loved them and missed them with that all-encompassing intensity that she knew so well. They looked like normal guys, but she had a little squishy spot behind her heart for all of them, like a little bit of that love from their wives and girlfriends had infected her, too.

Frankly, Veronica didn’t much like that.

It felt odd and exposed and too much, and she was pretty fucking sure Logan could read it all over her, which just pissed her off. What she really wanted to do was make an excuse and run off to work on a case, but this was her barbecue and she wasn’t about to take any shit from Serena for ditching another one of those. Especially not one at her actual house.

“Cowboy up, Mars,” she muttered to herself, and took the plate of cookies downstairs.

She heard Logan’s voice before she got to the bottom of the stairs. It was like she was a radio tower turned into that specific, rumbly frequency and she couldn’t quite help tracking him wherever he went in the crowd. Then she heard Serena’s, too, and her steps slowed. Logan’s WSO’s wife had become a once-a-week call, then coffee date, then shooting range and kickboxing date, and now Veronica felt a little odd if a day went by without a text from her. She should have expected that anyone Logan actually liked would be her kind of fun, but it still made her feel a bit awkward, like she was stealing his friends.

The voices were coming from around the corner, where Veronica had set up a bunch of borrowed tables and lawn chairs. She slipped into the recessed nook hiding her downstairs neighbor’s door and paused for a second. Just in case they were trading embarrassing stories about her or something. It was always good to be operating with full information, in her experience.

“Veronica’s been reading half the unit to sleep every night,” Serena was saying. “She started out on the call list, but insisted she never needed a call at night. Then, when I told her maybe somebody needed _her_ , well. She keeps her mother hen plumage well camouflaged, but it’s there.”

Logan chuckled, deep and low. “Usually, the sharpness of the mother hen _beak_ is your first clue about the plumage.”

“It’s so cute, though. When we haven’t had any emails for a few days and she gets worried about you, she starts spouting statistics. She knows exactly how many aircraft carriers have ever launched, versus how many have sunk. How many planes versus how many crashes. She knows statistics that would boggle your eyeballs. It’s really adorable until you think of her tiny blonde self curled up alone, late at night, googling crash statistics.”

Well, that was about enough of that. Veronica shifted her grip on her cookie plate, getting ready to interrupt that particular conversation. Until she realized that Logan was conspicuously quiet. She was going to toilet powder Serena’s toothbrush if he got all guilty and brooding around the house about “upsetting her” like she was some kind of Victorian swooning girlfriend who couldn’t handle her own shit.

“How was it, by the way?” Serena asked. “Second deployment since you guys got back together. You think you know the drill and it usually ends up being its own thing, right?”

“It was different, this time, for sure.” Logan paused. When he actually went on, Veronica had to fight down her surprise, and pretend it wasn’t tinged with jealousy. She’d gotten so close with Serena sometimes she forgot Logan had known her—and served with her—for years already.

“Last time, we went out of our way not to talk about the Navy or anything I was doing, and this time, she was a _part_ of everything.” Logan’s voice was rough, an earnestness to it that she could never get used to hearing aimed at other people. “It was like I could be excited that I was there, and still know she missed me, which was totally different. I didn’t feel as guilty for being gone. It was kind of amazing. If this is what you and Rod have had this whole time, don’t even tell me, it’s too depressing.”

Serena laughed. “Okay, big guy. I won’t tell you a thing.”

Veronica swallowed once, twice. It didn’t help to loosen the catch beneath her sternum. Logan sounded happy.

She cleared her throat quietly and turned, shortcutting back to the party and busying herself arranging the table of food.

Mother hen, her ass. See how mother hen she looked when she was murdering Serena on the volleyball court later.

A familiar set of broad shoulders caught her eye as Aurelio approached the table. They’d Skyped a couple of times during the deployment, emailed a bit more, but she hadn’t seen him since they got back. Her stomach flipped over and she scowled a bit at the junior high crush-ness of it all. So he was important to Logan, big deal. This was the same guy who hid in the bathroom to do Biore nose strips for his precious pores, according to Serena.

She arched an eyebrow at him, prompting. “Well? Did you do my favor? You’ve never said.”

Aurelio squirmed. “Yeah, I did it, but he looked at me weird.”

“And?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, he just seemed to take it in stride by about the third time.”

Veronica’s face softened and she came around the table.

“Good work.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek, trying not to show how relieved she was that he had actually followed through on the favor she’d asked him for on the boat.

Aurelio still looked uneasy, so she scoffed and said, “You guys fly around in multi-million dollar penis extensions at the speed of sound or something ridiculous. You’ve got masculinity to spare, and nobody’s going to revoke your man card for hugging.” She winked. “Besides, if they do, I’ve got a real light touch for counterfeiting.”

“Of course you do.” Aurelio raised his eyes to the clouds like he might pray. “Jesus, you’re even scarier than he said.”

“You know you love it,” she teased, feeling better now that she’d found a way to deal with Logan’s need for friendly, affectionate touch when he was gone on the boat.

“Have you met my wife?” Aurelio grinned. “I live for scary.”

“Yeah, should have guessed that by the pilot you choose to fly with.” She smiled. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to see a man about a cheeseburger.”

#

Veronica didn’t get another moment to catch her breath until she snuck upstairs again to use the bathroom, and came out to find Logan leaning a shoulder against the wall and smirking. Her body gave a jolt, like she still wasn’t used to seeing him outside the little rectangle of her laptop screen.

“So…when you told me about this little shindig, you didn’t tell me you were going to invite your other Navy boyfriend.”

She scoffed and breezed on by him to the kitchen. “I don’t know if that little nugget qualifies as a whole boyfriend. He’s more like Navy Jr., now sold separately from Mattel.”

“Nugget, hmm?”

She snagged a bottle of water out of the fridge and glanced at his growing grin. “It’s so cute that you have such a kink for Naval terminology. Must make walking a real challenge when you’re on the boat.”

“Mmm, want me to talk dirty to you about the Magic Carpet?”

“You mean the Maritime Augmented Guidance with Integrated Controls for Carrier Approach and Recovery Precision Enabling Technologies?”

When his eyes popped, she giggled.

“I’ve got a real talent for flash cards and memorization, Echolls. You should know that by now.”

“Your efforts will be richly rewarded.” He took the bottled water out of her hand and set it on the counter, backing her up against the wall and caging her in with a hand set to either side of her. “Once we can shake your stalker, that is.”

“Is that the vintage Echolls jealousy coming out to play?” She pursed her lips, her eyes dancing. “He’s just a pen pal from the program Serena hooked me up with. Likes hearing about my cases.”

The program was made of deployed Naval personnel who didn’t have family back home to write to them. It ate at Veronica, sometimes, late at night. How many deployments Logan went on during those nine lost years, before he had anyone. Except Dick, as much as Dick was good for anything. Carrie, assuming she’d ever been sober enough. It helped, a little, writing to some nineteen-year-old who needed company.

It was still awkward, writing letters to a kid she didn’t know, until he found out she was an investigator. He liked mystery novels, so she spun the less classified clues into little stories for him, and they got along okay. She’d invited him to the barbecue on an impulse, but hadn’t quite expected the puppy dog eyes, or how he’d follow her all around. Or that he’d ask a billion questions of the flight squadron guys, who were apparently about a million social classes higher than a newly enlisted grunt.

“He didn’t get truly stalkery until he found out who my boyfriend was.” Veronica traced the edge of Logan’s tee shirt. “Apparently some people are impressed by the whole fighter pilot, getting catapulted off a deck at zero to one hundred and seventy miles per hour thing.”

“ _Some_ people.” His voice went low and growly, like his tongue was a little dry, his throat a little tight.

She shrugged, and tried not to give away her own dry mouth. “No accounting for taste. Anyway, he seemed to like the letters. Also, he didn’t know what I looked like until he got here.”

Logan smirked. “And how’s that been going for you?”

“Let’s just say he was a better conversationalist over email.”

“Yeah, I bet he loved hearing from my hot girlfriend all the time.” Logan reached under her skirt and hooked long fingers around the sides of her panties, pushing them down with a quick flick of movement so they crumpled around her sandal-clad ankles.

Her body responded with a rush of heat, a little hollow squeeze at remembering how it felt to be filled by him after all this time. She struggled not to lose the thread of their conversation.

“You can’t be pissed that I wanted to make some barely-out-of-high-school kid less lonely on his first deployment.”

“Not pissed.”

His fingers were lazy, graceful as they skimmed the spaghetti straps of her dress off her shoulders. One, then the other.

Deep inside her, she felt a slow, liquid squeeze, her body preparing to receive him even as she tried to decipher the subtext of his tone.

“Yeah, you cornered me in the middle of a party and pulled my panties down because you weren’t jealous at all.”

“Up here isn’t the middle of the party. And don’t worry, I locked the door first.”

He hadn’t broken eye contact, not once. His deep brown eyes had that wild light they used to get in college, when they first started experimenting with different sexual things. But they had that softness, too, the way he looked at her for the first few weeks when he got home, like he couldn’t quite believe she was real.

He reached behind her and slowly, steadily drew down the zipper to her dress.

“If more than one sailor is looking forward to your letters, I just want to be sure you know which one gets to come home to you.” He ducked, just long enough to catch her leg behind the knee and draw it up along his hip.

Her dress was slipping down over her breasts, the skirt rucked up over his muscled forearm. The openness of the new position made her standing leg ache and go weak. She tried to pretend his low, possessive tone wasn’t making her wet.

Then she heard his zipper go down.

He was still holding her eyes and she felt the crumple of his jeans being pushed down against the bareness of her inner thigh, where he still held her leg high and open. She had to look down, couldn’t help herself, and saw him encircle his hard cock with his fingers and give it one slow pump before he guided himself under her dress.

Veronica gasped, her head whirling with how fast this had gone, how quiet and inevitable he felt. They shouldn’t— He’d locked the door and dropped the shades, but what if someone came up because they needed the bathroom or—

The tip of his cock touched her. Finding her wet, he entered her with one hard jerk. She came up on her toes in a cry. Without letting go of her leg, he tore her sundress up and off her head. Fucked into her with one more hard, desperate stroke. He was too tall and the angle wasn’t right to go deep, and his cock felt alarmingly thick.

He picked her up and her legs went around his waist in an easy, automatic movement. But she was naked and up against the wall in their living room while all their friends were right outside and he was almost entirely still dressed, his jeans sliding more down every time he pushed into her.

His hands came up to her face, trusting the strength in her legs to hold her to him as he cupped her cheeks, whispering words and kisses over her lips until they mingled together and she could hardly tell them apart.

“I love that you wrote letters to some bucktoothed sailor you hardly knew so he wouldn’t be lonely.” He thrust hard and deep, just once. “I love that he’s more than half-gone for you, and you’re coming home to me instead.”

She started to laugh at his pettiness and the next thrust jarred it into a moan instead.

“I love that some of the wives absolutely adore you and some of them hate you, and that they were there for you when I was gone. That you weren’t alone.”

He pulled her away from the wall and wrapped her entirely in his arms, taking her weight like it was just part of him.

“I love that you’re in this with me now, all of it. Like we’re…” He didn’t say the word but she heard, knew it like she could feel it vibrating out of his bones. _Family._

“Logan, I love you, I—” She tried to say more, but then he was holding her, powering into her with thick, shuddering strokes, his breath stuttering out where he’d buried his face in her neck.

She came, shaking, on his cock with only his arms holding her up. But he wasn’t done.

He bent his head, kissing her neck just below her ear and murmuring, “Rough or gentle?”

“Rough,” she gasped out. She didn’t think she could take gentle. Not right now, when he was already being so sweet to her.

He laid her back on the kitchen counter, his arms wrapped around her up-bent knees, and fucked her so deeply she came again within minutes, biting the heel of her own hand to muffle the sounds he was wringing out of her. He pounded her to a shattering finish, jerking out at the last minute to grip himself and come in wet, heaving stripes across her belly.

It was long, gasping moments before he pulled her off the counter and into his arms, letting her snuggle into his chest while he carried her to the shower. She made a small noise, wanting him to carry her to bed, instead, and then remembered.

“ _Fuck._ The barbecue.” She glanced up at him. “We disappeared and we’re going to come out with wet hair and—” She rolled her eyes. “Jesus, we’re such a cliché right now.”

“I keep telling you.” Logan grinned. “They would expect nothing else. These are our people.”

<<<>>>

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: I highly recommend looking up Michael Stokes photography. (Not safe for work, bc nudes). He has a keen appreciation for veterans, tattoos, and muscles. God bless America.
> 
> So…this fic grew a side fic! LoVeCrjo28 wanted to know the whole story behind the bank robber Veronica cuffed to her shower bar so she wouldn’t miss her Skype date with Logan, so I wrote it! It is barrel-full-of-monkeys-and-staplers level fun, so keep an eye out for that. It’ll go up in a few days and it’s called Skype is Sacred.


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